Why Do We Need to Normalize Anything?

Can’t we just be comfortable being offbeat?

I see so many social media posts that begin with the words “Can we normalize.” Can we normalize telling our friends we love them? Can we normalize putting up our Christmas tree on Halloween? Can we normalize celebrating one holiday at a time? Can we normalize going to bed at 8 p.m.?

I made that last one up — and I’m totally on board with it. But we don’t need to normalize it. The rest of the world can stay up if they want to.

I don’t get the concept behind these posts. Why do we need anything to be normalized? If you want to do it, do it regardless. Who cares if it’s normal?

I’ve also never understood the concept of “trending.” Every day, my internet home page tells me what search terms are trending. Why on earth would I care?

Something I discovered during all the pandemic Zooms with colleagues is that everyone lives in the same house. They have the same furniture, same décor, same color of paint on their walls. Do they really all have the same taste, or is this some kind of weird adult fad that they all follow? Are they conforming as if they’re still in middle school, or do they all really want me to live, laugh, love? Is gray everyone’s favorite color? Or is it just trending this year?

No one else has a suit of armor or a taxidermized jackalope, I can tell you that. Their houses are boring — I guess because they want them to be. They need things normalized before they do them. They care about trends. I don’t even know about trends. I have never been in style, and I’m okay with that. I like what I like, and I’m not afraid of being different. I have more fun than my colleagues do.

Yesterday, I rounded a corner in an antique mall and saw a wooden monkey holding a tray — a “monkey butler,” if you will. He was dignified in his red coat, and so utterly ridiculous. I had to have him. He is currently in my bathroom, ready to offer you some toilet paper.

I used to wear a lot of hats. Not ball caps. Women’s hats — different shapes and sizes, some vintage, some from department stores. Other women would come up to me, compliment my hat, and say, “I wish I could wear hats.” Why couldn’t they? Because they would stick out? Because no one else was doing it? If every woman who ever wished she could wear a hat would do so, they would be trendy again.

For what it’s worth, I hereby grant you, my reader, the power to be you. Like what you like, and don’t worry about whether other people agree with you. If we’re going to normalize something, let’s normalize not worrying about whether something is normal or not.